For almost 100 years Martinsville, Indiana
was
internationally known as a health resort. Tourists in
search of physical or mental comfort patronized its dozen
or so sanitariums, all of which were based around artesian
mineral water springs. Mineral water is still thought by
many to possess tremendous healing properties, and it was
sought with an eagerness bordering on fanaticism in the
early part of the century.
Beginning in the 1880s, a wide range of visitors
regularly visited the small town, from ailing elderly
people of modest means to ostentatiously wealthy Midwestern
and East Coast businessmen, judges, lawyers, and
politicians. The peak years for the Martinsville
sanitarium industry were 1890 to 1930, but due to changes
in the medical profession, vacation patterns, and
transportation, the spa craze slowed to a crawl by the time
the last Martinsville spa, the Home Lawn Mineral Springs,
closed its doors in 1971.